Iron Man – Rock Solid
Iron Man is a blockbuster hit due to a focus on acting, great action sequences and seamless big budget visual effects by lead facility Industrial Light and Magic, steered by visual effects supervisor John Nelson. Alongside ILM was The Orphanage and we drill down on just one aspect of the film – the Heads Up Display – in this week’s fxpodcast with designer Dav Rauch.
Red Centre #5
The new Red Centre #5 is out. In this podcast Jason and Mike discuss offline editing and RED. A key aspect of the RED offline workflow currently is the use of Crimson and the guys talk this week to Crimson founder Ian Bloom about his software and his approach to just solving problems. There is […]
Keynote Comes of Age
We never expected we would be posting about keynote here on fxguide.com but one of the surprising things at the Autodesk User group was the amazingly cool graphic design presentation that the team used. Normally we would run a mile than sit through a Powerpoint presentation but with the new Keynote 2, the product has […]
Blind wins 2 Telly Awards for Justin Timberlake’s “Lovestoned”
After the award-winning success of Gnarls Barkely’s “Crazyâ€, HSI director Robert Hales and BL:ND creative director Vanessa Marzaroli teamed up again to create Justin Timberlake’s “Lovestoned.” Blind won awards in the 29th Annual Telly Awards. “Lovestoned,†won two Bronze Telly statuettes: one in the Music Video category, and another in the Use of Animation category […]
Autodesk Acquires Assets of REALVIZ
SAN RAFAEL, Calif., May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of REALVIZ S.A., the privately held developer of image-based content creation software. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. REALVIZ was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, […]
neo stolen
Quantel’s regional office in Burbank was broken into last week, and the company’s brand new Neo control panel for its Pablo color correction system was taken. Quantel introduced Neo at NAB in Las Vegas. The stolen Neo was one of only a few in existence, and was slated for use in a series of upcoming […]
Red Centre # 4
Our latest podcast looks at the RED announcements and includes an in depth technical interview with Graeme Natress CTO of RED. (Yes, it gets very technical) Mike Seymour and Jason Wingrove also discuss the Red Ray, Land Sea and Air Camera options, and more. See the podcast block on the right side of this page […]
fxguidetv #027 – NAB report #2
A new ep of fxguidetv is up, covering da vinci and a new workflow spark called informer. This is our last one from NAB — thanks for all the emails and comments about our efforts from Las Vegas. We appreciate hearing from you. Visit the fxguidetv page for download and iTunes links.
fxguidetv #026 – NAB report #1
fxguidetv #26 is on the air! This episode comes to you from NAB in Las Vegas and features an exclusive interview with Ted Schilowitz from RED, a look a what the wizards at the Foundry are working on to improve stereoscopic workflow and we’ll also explain why Angie suddenly has many tattoos.
Quick Look: eyeon Generation
At NAB 2008 in Las Vegas, eyeon introduced their new conforming and versioning app called eyeon Generation, which has been in development for about two years. The app contains conforming and editing tools, compositing, collaboration with annotation, versioning, as well as render management. The release will bring a new and valuable type of workflow to the desktop compositing market.
red centre #3 – NAB report
Our newest podcast looks in depth at the RED announcements that were made Monday at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. Mike Seymour and Jason Wingrove discuss the new 5K camera “Epic”, the pocket professional camera “Scarlet”, RED Ray and more. RED is once again the longest line for a booth at […]
NAB: Flame/Smoke 2009
Our first podcast from NAB is up, covering the 2008 Autodesk User Group meeting on Sunday afternoon. The ep was recorded before the start of the show on Sunday evening, so we continued our annual tradition of covering the big meetup. Tomorrow’s podcast will be a roundtable with our industry friends and fxphd postgrads who […]
red centre ep 2 out
Ep 2 of Red Centre is out, with hosts Jason Wingrove and Mike Seymour This week on the show: the guys get ready for NAB and discuss the Nikon mount, the new Red Lenses and more.. Note: Red Centre will be coming from Vegas NEXT MONDAY with all the news from the show floor on […]
Review of Adobe Photoshop Express
Adobe has surprised some by moving towards a web app model for the crown jewel of Adobe: Photoshop. We review the new effort and see how viable it is for serious production.
fxguided Tour: Getting the Most Out of NAB
NAB starts this weekend, so we spoke to the organizers and worked out our fxguided tour to get the most out of NAB. With a massive investment in seminars and events, NAB now provides some really cool content discussions and presentations. Check out the talks, the presentations, events and the key parties.
NAB announcements start to roll in, DD IPO moves forward
As we gear up for NAB the press releases having started rolling in. Here are a few items that caught our interest: Prime Focus Purchases 1000 Seats Of Fusion® That is not a typo… 1000 seats. One thousand seats! Apple ships Final Cut Server! Cine-tal Systems to acquire cineSpace product line from Rising Sun Research. […]
Premiere of a New fxguide RED Podcast: red centre
We had such a good reaction to our fxguidetv eps on the red camera that we have decided to do a RED podcast every 2 weeks. Join Jason Wingrove and Mike Seymour as they look at a summary of what’s happening in and around the RED Camera. We’ll cover updates – news of third party […]
S4C
We are rarely presented with something truly new and inventive, but the work of Minivegas is really worthy of the term ‘groundbreaking’. For client S4C they have created a set of promos that automatically animates in realtime to the exact pitch of the presenter’s voice. Every day each promo is unique. This fully automated solution is both technically and creatively impressive, and also often a load of laughs.
MPC to open in LA
MPC plans to open a Santa Monica-based visual effects facility in late 2008. MPC LA will initially focus on the U.S. commercials VFX market, and it will also provide a front-end presence to MPC’s Los Angeles-based studios features VFX business. MPC LA is to be headed by VFX executive producer Mark Tobin. Tobin was most […]
Indie DI Heroes
DI is a process often reserved for the top films involving days of film scanning and large budgets. Local Hero Post is focused on providing a DI solution for the independent filmmaker, offering high quality at prices more in line with the budget of an Indie film. In this week’s fxpodcast, we discuss with owner Leandro Marini the approach Local Hero has taken to make this possible.
Imagineer Mogul Pre-NAB Podcast
Imagineer Systems is getting out ahead of the NAB PR rush by announcing that they will be talking with customers at NAB about their new compositing system “Mogul”, described as “a new vision for the visual effects industry: a new approach, a new workflow, a new architecture.” John Montgomery takes you direct to the source […]
Art of Digital 3D Stereoscopic Film
From U2 to Hanna Montana. From Beowulf to Journey to the Center of the Earth. 3D is hot once again. One of the strongest trends in visual effects films today is stereoscopic capture, post production and projection. Technology is catching up just when theatre owners are looking for ways to hold and appeal to a media saturated audience. We explore the theory and practice of digital 3D stereo imaging.
fxguidetv Episode #23 is Live: RED Workflow, Part 2
A new episode of fxguidetv is available for download. It is part two of our special look at using RED footage in post production. We’ve been shooting a ton of RED footage since receiving our camera last year, working through the various ways to efficiently get from R3D to other formats which can be used […]
The Mill for Coke: Super Bowl Revisited
In a broadcast filled of commercials with talking animals, dancing animals, and even animals with a point to prove, the Coke spot “It’s Mine” stood out from the crowd. We speak with The Mill’s creative director Angus Kneale and Senior CG artist Ben Smith about the work that went into making one of the most popular spots from the big show.
GenArts Releases Sapphire for Apple FxPlug Products
Sapphire Sparks have long been a favorite on flame and smoke systems and over the years have grown in popularity on other platforms such as After Effects and Avid. The plugins have now made the leap to Apple products such as Final Cut Pro and Motion which support the FxPlug architecture. Click through to read […]
Pulling the Wool Over: MPC circa 10,000BC
10,000 BC by director Roland Emmerich takes audiences to a time when mighty mammoths shook the earth. In this in-depth article we examine just one part of this blockbuster film and drill down on complex task of producing photorealistic mammoths that, while not the heros of the film, certainly gave the film power, gravitas and some ripping good thrills.
The Kingdom: the Agency, the Effects, the Titles
One of our favourite films of 2007 was The Kingdom. If you missed it – rent it. Peter Berg’s film is a powerful action drama based around a criminal investigation shared by two cultures chasing deadly terrorists before they are ready to strike again. We explore the seamless visual effects delivered by Rhythm & Hues and explore the amazing opening titles which both inform and set the tone for the entire film from the PIC Agency.
Glue Tools Announces Cineon/DPX Pro v3.0 + New 2.5 Maintenance Release
We’re big fans of the Cineon/DPX tools here at fxguide and are looking forward to the improvements in the new version, set to be released at NAB 2008 in April. The new version will include Cineon and DPX Sequence Presets along with a full Cineon or DPX Codec. The combination of these two features now […]
And the Oscar goes to…..
The Golden Compass….Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood Congratulations to the winners of the Best Achievement in Visual Effects Oscar this year. The crew also won the Special Visual Effects category at the BAFTA awards earlier this month. “(The) four people standing up here represent over a thousand artists so, it’s kind […]